My father once said to pin an angel to a tree one must know the exact point between wing and celestial body.

It was a special evening for us, my father being dead and I the sole witness to his reappearance. Every minute he spoke without tongue, motion could be heard lapping against earthly obstacles.

Most people, he assured me, are too afraid to listen. I had buttered and floured the cod and was frying it in a pan on the stove. The smell of it seeping into the potatoes, the air surrounding us.

He spoke of breath and how even the dead have certain tricks for inhaling and exhaling. So we no longer have a pair of lungs, I could sense his emptiness shrug, doesn't matter. If a soul is thirsty enough, he said, he'll find a way to reach through the pickets of time and steal some air if he has to.

I ate in silence. He waited, far from the man I knew him as, still I could sense his impatience. I sought no affection nor did I try to dress his wounds. I simply kissed his cheek with mine, and felt the velvet slip of breath like a hole through my chest when he left me.

Lisa Zaran is a poet and essayist, the author of six collections, and founder/editor of two online poetry journals.